Evansville experienced a bizarre eruption of eight hit-and-runs last Wednesday. Somehow, no one was injured, but that all changed a day later.

Just before 11 p.m. Thursday, a motorist driving down Ohio Street saw a man, later identified as 43-year-old Mark Slaughter, lying on the asphalt. The driver told police he tried to block the road, but another vehicle wormed around the impromptu blockade and ran over Slaughter, who was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

Evansville police announced early Sunday morning that they’d arrested 31-year-old Krystle Cupp in connection with the hit-and-run.

It’s a horrific story. But at least it has a possible ending – unlike a similar tragedy that unfurled on a fall afternoon 37 years ago.

On Nov. 12, 1981, 6-year-old Richard Eugene “Dickie” Kratzer was crossing Covert Avenue when a truck barreled toward him. According to witnesses, including his 7-year-old cousin who watched from across the street, Dickie tripped onto the pavement and couldn’t get up in time. The truck struck and killed him – and kept rumbling down the street.

Dickie’s family wasn’t far away, making dinner in a house in the 1400 block of Marshall Avenue. They didn’t know he’d slipped outside. According to a Courier story the next day, his grandmother thought he was still sitting in the living room, watching “Batman.”

Authorities released descriptions of the truck and driver based on eyewitness accounts. The vehicle was a 1963 or ’64 Ford adorned with a white camper shell and a driver’s-side mirror held on with a c-clamp. The driver was described as a bearded white man wearing a red shirt.

In the days following, the public drowned police in more than 100 tips. They ultimately led nowhere.

Dickie’s life was senselessly abbreviated. Even the few short years he was allowed to live were pockmarked with travesty.

According to previous interviews with Evansville Police Detective Tony Mayhew, who worked cold crimes and inherited Dickie’s case, the young Kratzer boy was also a victim of child molestation. Police oscillated on whether the two cases were connected.

A few years ago, Mayhew told 14News he believed Dickie might have been intentionally run down. He said he had pinpointed a person of interest – an unnamed man jailed on molestation charges in Tennessee.

I raked through the Courier & Press archives to find any mention of a 1981 child molesting case involving the abuse of a 5 or 6-year-old boy. I hoped to get some idea of who this person of interest might be. But I couldn’t find anything that fit the bill. Either the Courier didn’t cover it or the archives aren’t complete.

If not for one terrible moment on Nov. 12, 1981, Dickie Kratzer could be in his 40s now. Instead, his life was severed in adolescence, and we still don’t officially know who is responsible.

“We are hoping (the driver’s) conscience is bothering him,” Detective Cpl. Ray Schapker told the Press five days after Dickie’s death. “If it’s eating at this guy, there’s a good chance he may want to come and get it off his chest.”

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Exclusive arrest video at the scene where a man was shot in the face Thursday afternoon on the 1600 South Morton Avenue.
Zach Evans / Courier & Press